ilitarist

They became more, ahem, obscure. But there are enough of them and they're good. There's Western fear of turn-based games so you have many real-time tactical RPGs like Dragon Age. There's King's Bounty series I've mentioned earlier and also small indie games like Avernum, Geneforge, Knights of Chalice. Just recently we've had XCOM, Shadowrun Returns, Blackguards, Expeditions Conquistador, Wasteland 2. All of those games are at least decent but don't get popularity of Japanese tactical RPGs for some reason.

You mentioned that XCOM touches the same parts of your souls as FFT. I'd like everyone who wants Strategy RPGs similar to FFT on their PC to check out King's Bounty (specifically Crossworlds cause you get to play as Audrey Tautou. Also it's refined and balanced). This game is actually Heroes of Might and Magic with an RPG instead of strategic level. It has several progression systems like many SRPGs do: you have your main character/general parameters and skills, you have summonable creature progression, you have companion with special inventory and abilities, some of your gear can level-up or react to your actions (e.g. an item may give good bonuses but stops doing it if he doesn't like your army composition or something like that). Your troops themselves are not individuals but every type of troops has different traits, active abilities, synergies with items and other units. The game might be slightly tedious (especially on lower difficulties), but it has this army/gear composition preparation for tough battles. It has a feeling of solving a tactical puzzle even though most of the enemy armies are randomized as well as troops available to player. Also the story is boring and there's, ahem, humour. Still very good games even if the publisher milks those games endlessly.

Not sure yet if this the case for Endless Legend, but! Big strategy games are like that: you have to play 100h to understand if mechanics are balanced or not. And they don't usually cost much. So most people won't be offended if the game only gets them for 100h, especially with many games costing much more and having only 10h of gameplay. Endless Legend has at the very minimum very distinct races with unique quests so you are at least getting 8 games where you learn something new. If after those 8 games you see that mechanics lack choice you still had a good time. And by that time you'll probably get free expansions.

Endless Legend is a rare case of game you call "potentially great" as a good thing. There were dozens of "potentionally great" games called so cause they were bad games with good ideas that could be made great with extensive work. Empire Total War was like that and become decent with Napoleon standalone expansion. Civilization 5 was like that and become great after 2 expansions. Many others never became good. Spore, numerous space 4x's - they all had potential. Endless Legend is not like that. It's good here and now. But we know that Amplitude will support the game for a year or two and create numerous free additions that will make the game even better. EL is already better then Endless Space - and it's a compliment on it's own - and there's no doubt it'll become even better. It's the game you have to get if you have any interest in strategy games.

Perhaps EA saw that Sims can't compete with Crusader Kings 2 in quantity of DC. The battle was lost before it begun. I would definitely if Rob and Troy just don't like fantasy games. Age of Wonders 3 add on and Endless Legend went gold. Time to talk about Sims!

Are you a wizard? ...Sorry. See, the problem with good editing is that sometimes it's more interesting than the show subject. Frankly, I don't see how you can talk about other RTS so soon after the marvelous Rise of Nations show. Also you shouldn't talk about point & click adventures set on trains for at least a year.

Perhaps it's complex in a more traditional way. You can play it like Warcraft with more economics/research. RoN, on the other hand, is hard to grasp. I've struggled with it 10 years ago and I still do. Cause I instantly want to play it as city builder or Civilization. I understand that building barracks in Ancient Era is useful to raid enemy or scout the map. But I can build 2 more farms! I can research Science 2! And then it's Enlightenment Era and even moderate AI eventually successfully defends from my populace cap grand army. Which feels uncontrollable, by the way. Even with alt-click. I remember RoL having more manageable scope. It was innovative in a more... convenient and recognizable way, I say. Gameplaywise, not storywise, of course. It's a shame RoL can't be bought digitally. Meanwhile Microsoft allows you to download the demo. Evil, evil Microsoft.

RoL is a great game. I haven't ever played MP but I remember campaign being interesting from gameplay perspective but later getting into total batshit insane territory by the time you're getting into the third part. I hope it gets on Steam so I can see its MP side too. Do predetermined cities and less techs make it less complex than RoN? I'm trying to beat RoN campaigns and some scenarios highlight the problem. In, say, Alexander the Great campaign you have various Greek factions. I've assumed each one had Power of Philosophy. But then they give me one as an ally I can switch to and I notice that Supply Wagons heal me. So those particular Greeks are really French. And I don't even know who others are. And I wouldn't noticed anything at all if they were some Turks with purely numerical bonuses.

I really want to hear what Troy has to say on unique nations representation. This is one of many aspects making RoN great: nations really feel different moreso than in Civilizations yet they don't become 1-gimmick nation like Civ5 Venice or Maya. They feel complex and have many different features with most being more than archetype. English are not just bowmen and admirals, they also have taxation system and good planes. Also can anyone tell me: what should be the German weakness? What are they bad at? It seems all games try just to ignore some parts of Germany. Civ5 forgets that Germany is country of industry, culture and philosophy, Civ4 ignores trading history and Rise of Nations forgets about culture.

Haven't listened to the show yet, but about cat's pajamas: RoN is the best real-time "grand" strategy, for lack of a better word. Similar to Total Anihilation in that the war is not won by Blizzardish micromanagement, but by strategic choices on a grand scale. It's even better than Civiliation in this regard cause here it's all sawn together so close and seamlessly while in Civilzation war happens in sort of parallel universe. Why then are there generals and spies in the game? Why can I try to turn the tide by bribing soldiers or by creating decoys? Why do I get bonus damage for attacking artillery from the sides? And then the sequel went into schizophrenic frenzy of having 4X Starcraft in mushroom universe. EDIT: I've listened to the show and was utterly humiliated twice since I've written this post. It's sad we don't get more games like this. Cause they are as ambitious as you get. If Sid Meier stops making Civilizations tomorrow we won't get spiritual successors for a long time. And definitely no 4X-RTS. Now I'll go to train my Alt-click on AI.

I don't know subscriber numbers but it feels that 3MA is less popular than it should be. I've heard about it last year from Paradox News page (there was a link to Crusader Kings 2 DLC show). And I mostly play strategy games for many years. I hope you have enough listeners so that you could produce shows with affordable prices.

Those jokes are Lenin toward stupid.